The fruits of our labour

We’ve started to really enjoy the fruits of our labour now so I thought it was time for another update from the Little London Garden:

We’ve started getting a lot of fruit from our forest of cucumber plants so we’ve made some chutney (with some apples from our tree), relish and pickled cucumbers to get rid of some of it.



We’ve also had some beetroot so now have a couple of jars picked for our lunches:



We came home from visiting Mummy and Nick this weekend to find that all of our tomatoes have been struck down with blight after the rains so, not wanting to lose all of our hard work, we picked all of the green tomatoes. As you can see, we had quite a few:


We’ve made 8 jars of green tomato chutney, which was delicious last year, but haven’t even dented the pile so I’ve found some recipes for Green Tomato Ketchup, Tomato Chilli Sauce and Green Tomato Tarte Tatin. We’ve got through 3 bottles of vinegar this week so need to get to the shops to stock up before we start are big green tomato cook-off.

We’ve also been making the most of Mummy and Nick’s produce wherever we could. When we were in Basingstoke at the weekend I made 4 jars of the now famous Runner Bean Chtuney, which is just delicious! As you can see, we’re building up quite a stock pile of preserves for Christmas presents:







Matt has also been busy baking, he’s made a Plum Custard Tart and a Red Onion and Goats Cheese tart, both of which were delicious:










We had some pastry left over so I made a vegetable quiche, seen here with some home grown salad, Matt’s homemade bread and some home grown borlotti bean salad – which we made from a recipe from Jamie Oliver:

Borlotti Bean Salad

Boil how ever many fresh borlotti beans you can get with half a potato, half a tomato and a whole bulb of garlic for about 40 minutes. When they are all soft, drain ¾ of the water off and mush the potato, tomato and garlic into a rough paste. Add this paste back to the pan with the beans and the left over water. Slosh in some good olive oil and vinegar (I used white wine vinegar) and some fresh herbs (I added parsley and chives) and serve.

Besides the food that we’ve been getting plenty of, we have also still been getting plenty of visits from our menagerie of wildlife. The squirrel was hanging of the bird feeder this morning along with some sparrows and last week we had 3 foxes in the garden – we think they are Geraldine, her older cub from the spring, and a younger cub (who is very energetic!). Here are Geraldine and her eldest asleep under the apple tree (you wouldn’t believe we lived in London would you?!):

Fruit and Flowers

The raspberry crop is still fantastic but we have now found a supply of blackberries to go with them. Today's crumble has a lovely sharpness to it as the two complement each other beautifully.



The James Grieves Apple is getting bigger and bigger and we are approaching the time when the decision has to be made to pick it. After all the effort of growing it to this size, it will be such a shame if it drops from the tree and is bruised.





Something new at the allotment this year is flowers. I hear you say 'but you can't eat them', and you would be right, but in such a disasterous year for vegetable growing, it is lovely to have something to show off. The gladioli are magnificent and there is a lovely selection of dahlias (to follow next time) and we have actually
been complimented on our sweet peas at Old Basing (also to follow as I keep forgetting to take the camera when I go there).

Whatever happened to Emily

After her period of being broody, Emily went into moult. This is another period when ducks don't lay well but the moult has now finished so we are hoping for laying to start soon.

Something very strange has happened though, she has lost her soft honey beige and has become one of the brown ducks. Now, I don't know if this happens naturally and she will pale down with time, or she wants to be one of the gang.

The picture is a before and after.

The first decent harvest

A big picking day today, starting with the usual one egg and followed by, a cucumber, celery, various beans, lettuce, tomato, carrots, chard, spinich, herbs, garlic, raspberries and chillies.

I can keep my secret no longer

I must say thank you to my reader who pointed out that someone with degree level maths cannot count. Not only did I get the number of beans wrong, I said that we had three of each whereas we had five 1sts, five 2nds and five 3rds. The blog has been duly corrected.

Anyway, the purpose of this entry is that I can no longer keep the secret of my success with my award winning chocolate chip cookies. Although I didn't realise it at the time, it is simple.

The recipe called for:

6oz soft margarine
8oz caster sugar
2 egggs
12 ox self raising flour
4 oz plain chocolate chips

Now, without actually spelling it out, I would think everybody else used chicken eggs. I will leave you to work out the rest but the cup should really go to Ebony!!!

You are sworn to secrecy

Basingstoke Flower and Vegetable Show

Yesterday and today were manic on the allotment and in the kitchen. We gathered what vegetables we could, dug up tons of potatoes at Old Basing and made a terrific mess of the kitchen yesterday. Today we were up at the crack of dawn to take everything to the show but couldn't make it all in one trip so had a mad rush at the end. I was really annoyed when I realised that the last few exhibits that I had thrown onto paper plated I had mis-read the amount, so two classes we weren't even judged, especially as they were some we could have won as ours were by far the best french beans and fruit. Still, I will learn for next year to take more care.

Anyway, back to the successes of the day. Out of a total of 51 entries, we came away with 15 prizes. Five 1sts, Five 2nds, Five 3rds. You will notice that one of the rosettes for 2nd is missing, this is because it was rightly Katy's as it was her tub of flowers that one this one (see below) so the rosette was heres.




and last but not least, the cup for thE best home produce class. In my book, that makes me the best cook in Basingstoke!

Here I am receiving my cup from our local MP.



First prize

Class 64. Chocolate Chip Cookies. Also best exhibit in the home produce class.







Class 66. A trifle for one person.










Class 69. Five cheese straws.











Class 50. One names pot plant grown for foliage.








Class 30. Three blooms of large flowered roses of the same variety.










Second Prize

Class 71. Homemade white wine. (OK I will admit that there were only two entries in this class, and I am sure they didn't taste it)









Class 68. Five fruit tartlets.











Class 57. A window box or tub/container (maximum size 80cm/32").








Class 32. One large flowered rose of any variety.










Class 23. Two vegetables of the same variety which is not listed above (elephant garlic)








Third Prize


Class 70. A vegetarian dish for one/two persons (stuffed marrow served with sweet potato and sweet corn.








Class 63. Five biscfuits of the same variety (ginger and cinnamon biscuits)







Class 19. Two cabbages with stalks trimmed to a minimum of 2"









Class 16. Five spring onions.









Class 9. An odd shaped vegetable.







I think we have learned a lesson from the show. We should give up growing vegetables!

The graduation

Rebecca's graduation day was a lovely event, taking place in St George's Cathedral, London on 27 July. I am sure you all remember that she now has as well as her BA, a Master of Science in Human Resources (with Distinction).

Ponds and posts

Never one to miss out on a chance to get Matt working on the allotment, Nick and Matt put in yet more posts, this time for the cage at the top of 51 to hopefully keep the flying rats of the cabbages.

They then moved onto the strawberry patch which was totally overgrown with weeds.




While they were busy at this Brian and Marlene magically produced a hole in the ground which was exactly the size and shape of the pond that we had aquired from Barry. The original pond we had bought from the tip for £2 but decided that it was too small. We were chatting one day and Barry mentioned that he had a pond which was too big, so in true allotment fashion we swapped. The reason I say, magic is that Rebecca and I popped to Morrisons and when we got back, there it was. We weren't gone long enough for it to have been dug by conventional methods, so I am very suspicious.




A bit of soil sifting later, it fit perfectly giving the ducks a larger pond when they are out of the compound. They also love the fact that there is lovely soft mud all the way round the pond in which they can dig their beaks and get loads of slugs and grubs. Yummy!


The twins especially love it and rush around like a couple of teenagers diving in at the deepend and swimming lengths. They haven't yet worked out that there is a shallow end so make a lot of splashing and wing waving trying to get out of the deep end, but I am sure they will learn.






The reason why we went to Morrisons was to get refreshments for the workers and we decided that it would be easier to BBQ. We had a BBQ sitting in the shed but it took two to put it together.


All was prepared and cooking started when we noticed a huge black cloud heading our way. Matt fixed a tarpaulin over one end of the duck compound and we hastily moved in. A bit smelly but as long as you didn't look down at what you were standing in, all was OK, except the BBQ really didn't want to light. Guess who was a boy scout!

The babies

We needed a day out yesterday and we found somebody in Birmingham who had two 12 week old Chocolate Indian Runners for sale, so off we went. I phoned her when we were on the M62 to let her know we would soon be there and she was so helpful with directions - follow the signs for Cadbury's world and you can't miss us.

Now, you can imagine how we felt hearing that we were going to the Cadbury's factory to get two Chocolate ducks!


It was with great relief that we went on a couple of hundred yards and found that there were read ducks and really cute. Even cuter were the one day old, three week old and seven week old ducklings that she had hatched.

We kept them in a large box overnight and introduced them to the others this morning. Ebony seems to have adopted them and they follow here everywhere much to the iritation of the other two who are a bit put out. Elena did a lot of quacking as she seem to have taken the role of guard duck so was warning everything else to keep away. They had no problems settling in and are actually almost fully grown but are certainly more lively and have larger apetites than the others.

Tomato blight

A very sad weekend as Sylvester passed away on Sunday leaving a very empty space at home and a very confused Spikey as to where his brother was.

We also got to the allotment and found that we have lost nearly all out outdoor tomatoes with blight which means that all we could do was pull them up and destroy them. We still have about 10 plants in the greenhouses but due to the constant change in temperature and unpredictable sunshine these aren't looking great.

It is lucky that we are not totally relient on what we grow to eat, as this is it now that the early raspberries and the rhubarb crops are coming to an end.

Ashamed at my lack of blogging

I must most sincerely apologise for the lack of blog but I put it down to the weather and Wimbledon (not the garden but the tennis).

Very little work seems to have gone on as every time we are at home it is raining. The weeds are growing like mad and the ducks are loving it. They now stand by their gate waiting to be let out into the allotment when we get there in the evening as they love being out amongst the fruit trees foraging for bugs and young shoots. They especially love getting their beaks under the ground cover that I put around the trees as there are loads of woodlice and slugs around. The trouble is that it is so soft soil that the they come up with muddy beaks as Elena is demonstrating here.

Some things are growing well and we have had bucket loads of raspberries, they are starting to come to an end but the logenberries are also covered so a couple of boxes of them as well. There goosberries were totally wiped out by the birds as we forgot to cover them and the blackcurrents, red currents and white currents are too young to give a good crop this year but I have great hopes for next year.

Logenberries in their growing stage. We made the mistake of trying to pick them when they were the colour of raspberrries but they go really deep purple before they are ready and get sweeter as they mature.





An interesting experiment in the growing of peas. The ones we grew are CW were disasterous and we had about 30 pods from as many plants. The ones I planted at OB have done wonders and I picked a carrier bag full last week and as many are ready for picking already. I have pulled up the peas at CW and replaced them with more climbing beans which should give us a late crop.

Back to the ducks. We are down to very few eggs from Ebony only as Elena doesn't seem to be laying at all and Emily has gone broody. We are hoping that another week she will be over it as she is quite pathetic. She sits in the nest that she has made in the corner of the house with her head poking out of the door so that she doesn't miss anything. She seems to have become the leader as the others wait for her before they come out of their compound. We have a tarpaulin pinned down to supress the weeds and it has made a natural pond which they love. As it is filled by rain water they loved sloshing in it and filtering the water with their beaks.

Now all there is to do is leave your with the promise that I will keep regular updates no matterwhat the weather and will leave you with trying to imaging the wonderful smell that is filling the kitchen from the sweet peas that I have growing at OB.

Our Family and Other Animals

And now, over to SW19, for the latest from Wimbledon...

As it’s been so long since I sent news from the big smoke I thought I would take this opportunity to update you on our garden. We have now dug three beds down the left hand side of the garden. The one nearest the house is onions, garlic, salad, beetroot, radishes and spring onions. The middle bed is mainly tomatoes, but also celery (because mummy gave us sooooo much, thanks for that), a globe artichoke, brussel sprouts and a snowman pumpkin. The far bed is mainly beans (broad, cannelino, borlotti, climbing French and kidney) plus more celery and another pumpkin.

In addition to this in pots we’ve got another 20 or so tomato plants, about 15 cucumber plants (although I keep finding more that I had forgotten about!), some peas (which look very pathetic), 6 butternut squash plants (grown from seeds from a squash from the supermarket), some chard, lots of herbs and about 20 peppers/chillis (they got mixed up so I don’t know which is which), an aubergine and 3 window boxes full of salad. We’ve also got our fruit – 3 blueberry plants (which we planted last year), 2 raspberries, 2 strawberries and a blackcurrant.

I can’t quite believe we’ve got so much and we are constantly fighting with our menagerie of pests:

• Slugs
• Aphids
• Black fly
• Moths (giant ones, they can definitely smell my fear)
• Rosemary leaf beetles (apparently new to the UK but thriving in Wimbledon)
• Wood pigeons
• Cats
• Foxes (Geraldine, who lives at the end of our garden, and her cub)

You wouldn’t believe we’re in London! Added to all of this is the fact that we are going on holiday for two weeks so we are hedging our bets and asking 2 separate friends to water for us in the hope that they will remember at least once each. I hope it all lasts!

We haven't got any up to date photos but this is our bean patch, before the beans started growing like crazy...

Strawberry Fields Forever

Hello! It's guest blog time again.

This week sees a brand new collaboration. Pyotts Products have been producing a high volume of summer fruits so it’s sister (or should that be daughter) company “South Wimbledon Organic Foods” has come to the rescue. The fruit survived the tropical temperatures of Long Sutton and a completely different type of jam on the M3 to make it safely back to London. Matt has now expertly turned the strawberries (even the squishy ones) into 3 jars of “fridge jam” which, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall assures us is “a sort of halfway house between a full-blown preserve and a fresh fruit sauce”. This is Hugh’s recipe:

Makes about 2kg (about five to six 340g jars).

1.5kg strawberries
The juice of 1 lemon
750g jam sugar with pectin

Divide the fruit in half, putting the smaller berries in one bowl and the larger ones in another (if the small ones are nevertheless quite big, cut them in half). Roughly crush the large ones with a potato masher (or by hand), then combine the crushed and uncrushed strawberries, and add the lemon juice and sugar. Stir to combine, then leave for an hour to draw out the juices.

Transfer the mixture to a preserving pan. Bring it quickly to a rolling boil, then boil hard for exactly five minutes. Remove from heat and leave to cool a little (this stops the whole fruit rushing to the top of the jar when poured).

Pot in jam jars that have been sterilised by being washed in hot, soapy water and dried in a low oven (or put through a dishwasher cycle). Seal the jars while hot, and label them when cool. Once opened, refrigerate the jam and use within two or three weeks.

I can’t take any credit for the jam, Matt did that all himself, but I did bake some yummy scones to put it on. Here they are together:

Pyotts Products

Pyotts Products has opened for business again, this time due to the excess of rhubarb. 8 jars of rhubarb and orange chutney and 12 of spicy rhubarb chutney are up for grabs so put in your orders now while stocks last. A couple have already gone missing and I think the crumbs and sticky drips on the worktop indicate that Nick approves of this batch.